In 2017, the sci-fi future will have arrived. That’s when human head transplants will be possible, says one Dr. Sergio Canavero. Likely the cost of a transplant will be around $13 million. [Quartz]

Which means that Mr. Burns will be able to afford one. [Simpsons Wiki]

A protest banner in an Oscar Murillo was removed by a museum security guard. The Centro Cultural Daoiz y Velarde in Madrid took seven years to build and cost 13 million. That pissed some people off, thus the signs. Murillo decided to integrate that into his work. [Artnet]

Patrick Schumacher, director of Zaha Hadid Architects, wants to get rid of public funding for art schools. “Public funding for art, including public funding for art schools is an indefensible anachronism,” he writes on Facebook. “Schools of art are not justifiable by argument, because contemporary art is not justifiable by argument.” Schumacher does not go into defining what a ‘justifiable by argument’ for an academic course would be, so we can’t take his statements too seriously. [Dezeen]

Brian Eno on digital music making tools and the question of whether every imperfect note should be retuned. [The Vinyl Factory]

Chicago-based, Cuban-born artist Alejandro Figueredo Díaz-Perera has been living behind a wall for three weeks, in quiet protest of his U.S.-Cuban policies. [Chicago Magazine]

Márcia Oliani, 54, the finance manager of an art gallery who recently endured six days without water in her Sao Paolo apartment unleashes some crazy vitriol on the governor and the water utility company Sabesp. The city has been experiencing the worst drought they’ve had in the last century “I feel hatred, hatred of the governor and of Sabesp,” she said. “I’d like to take them out and set fire to them. They completely failed to warn us, and have just continued to lie about this throughout.” [The New York Times]

City Desk Studio has been trying to sell the skyway they purchased in 2006 for $1.2 million since 2009. Having been unsuccessful, they are now offering $5000 to anyone who will purchase it. Greg Allen has devised a cheapo shipping option, which involves removing the skyway’s floor, but we think the permits required to get it on the barge he’s proposed might blow the budget. [Greg Allen]

A new book of Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko’s writings: The Artist’s Reality: Philosophies of Art. [Amazon]

Looks like we all need to move to Minneapolis. Some stats: “The Minneapolis–St. Paul metro area is richer by median household income than Pittsburgh or Salt Lake City (or New York, or Chicago, or Los Angeles). Among residents under 35, the Twin Cities place in the top 10 for highest college-graduation rate, highest median earnings, and lowest poverty rate, according to the most recent census figures.” Why is the city so successful? According to Myles Shaver, a professor at the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, it’s because “its most important resource never leaves the city: educated managers of every level.” I guess that’s a resource more valuable than oil. [The Atlantic]

Nothing even remotely to do with art, but you gotta read Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis in the Times opinion pages today. He talks uses game theory and Kant to explain his position on austerity and Greek’s current negotiation strategy. [The New York Times]

And for those who want to know more about Yanis Varoufakis, an apparent heart throb in Greece, here’s the “Fuck Yeah Yanis Varoufakis” Tumblr, complete with duckfaces. [Fuck Yeah, Yanis Varoufakis]

And for those who want to know more about the economics of the Greece financial crisis and how it relates to the history of World War I, there’s Paul Krugman hitting it out of the park. [The New York Times]

71-year-old artist David Hammons has announced he is opening a gallery in Yonkers, but little details are known. Here’s what Andrew Russeth found out about the gallery: “Hammons’s space, at 39 Lawrence Street, is a one-story brick building with tall ceilings, filling a lot that measures two-thirds of an acre, about 29,200 square feet. According to property records, an entity called Duchamp Realty LLC, which is registered to the artist’s home address in Brooklyn, bought it for $2.05 million in January 2014.” [ARTnews]

Congratulations, again, to Pierre Huyghe for winning the 2015 Kurt Schwitters Award! Here’s AFC’s posts on the digital-conceptual-minimal artist. (“I do not own Tate Modern or the Death Star” remains one of Corinna’s all-time favorite works of art in neon.) [Artforum]

A letter from “Artists for Palestine” was published over this weekend in The Guardian. Over 700 art-worlders have decided to disengage with Israel in the cultural sphere. This means that invitations to any cultural centers with ties to the Israeli government will be declined. The 700 includes John Berger, Brian Eno, and Jeremy Deller. [The Guardian]

Back in 1995, Brian Eno’s opening speech at Turner Prize award ceremony caused all kinds of clamor. The speech lampooned the arts community for its lack of intellectual rigor, comparing the openness and public knowledge of scientific debates with the often-impenetrable discourse around art.

Eno, in his diary, recounts that at the ceremony, “various people looked at me like I was Satan, or with obvious pity.” The next day, he notes that he was stopped in the street and congratulated. When read today, however, the words sound as fresh and exciting as ever, and demand everything I often feel the fine art world lacks. As such, I’m reproducing the text in its entirety for readers below.